Artist Spotlight 2021

Review of CIACLA’s Artist Spotlight - The work of Erin Schalk & Chris O'Mahony by Terence Erraught  | May 2021

When first sitting and considering these works (of two different artists), I was struck by the reality of our current situation. Here I am, in front of my computer, connected to the internet. A virtual space, a virtual reality. For this Artist Spotlight series, it has kicked off with two artists encompassing video, sculpture, painting, mixed media works and digital photography. 

A defining experience with any kind of art is just that. A moment in the presence of the art. In an unusual era of NFT’s and zoom meetings, as a person, a human, one of our most primeval relationships to sculpture is exactly that: our physical relation to it. In the case of sculpture it's how as humans, we literally measure up to it. Any virtual exhibition space that I have experienced thus far has only allowed at best a very isolated interaction with an individual work, like wearing binoculars in a gallery. With that in mind, I hope you will engage with these works in a manner that is fitting to the current climate. Perhaps we can look at this period in time as a moment of reflection of how we engage with exhibitions, both in the flesh and online, and how these experiences are shaping our perception of such works.

As a body of work, the selected works of Erin Schalk brings to mind the idea of perspective. The development of the camera altered how we see and interpret visual works or for that matter everything, but also how it places the viewer at the centre of the universe. Schalk is creating a link between herself and the audience, literally in many instances, such as when we enter her body and contemplate “our” feet as they splash in the water of an enamel bathtub (When I Dreamed of the Accident - available to view here). 

Looking at Schalk’s paintings before reading any titles evokes a sense of fragmentation and isolation. They appear as sections of a bigger whole, an edited memory that has been explored through a process of creating textured surfaces. They appear cropped, with many layers, hiding a story, a concept or more probable, a memory in the artist’s mind. Having watched the videos first, as a viewer, I was drawn to the order of sequences that were put together, and maybe the paintings can also be seen as an extension of this, or visa versa. Titles and materials are indicative of a lot here. Many of the mixed media works tell a story of how they are rooted in a very specific place (Wetland, Crest, Outcrop, Range) which all indicate a part of a landscape, field, mountain or wave. Others of a very specific time or moment when something happened - an action took place- when a decision was made perhaps (Light Enters, Without a Trace, Going Forward).

Looking at Christopher O'Mahony’s works, it is evident that structure plays a very large part in this artists’ mindset. Codes and systems. Again, ignoring the titles to start, it appears that a clear similarity runs through the work. Of course, they are fabricated by the one man, and he has created a system of physical construction, a process binding and meshing the materials together to form a strong and reliable, bold mesh, or underlying structure/foundation. There is also a lot of visible evidence of cultural influences, from the use of modernist (minimalist) metals, to the interwoven “to hand” materials that appear more playful and human, contradictory to the modernist machine metals. Then there are other works, which are merging the two, to create a very unfriendly, barbed emotional response. Here the structure has been applied, the metal material has been used, but in a more “human”, sporadic fashion, that tells a story, but it is vicious, sharp, and can both keep you out, or imprisoned inside. These have a human heart but a machine ethic (Bald Eagle Trap). 

Two of the images provided include a viewer, bringing us back to engaging in terms of an online experience. This instantly alters the interpretation, and brings it back to the relationship between the “person”, the work and the space.